On 4/15/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
John Lee wrote:
I also realised, from looking at other comments made on that RfA, and
from
reading the opinions of people in present-day RfAs, that this philosophy isn't one adopted by many. People look for reasons to oppose, even if
they
don't have much to do with harm. For example, why should writing an FA
or
not doing enough vandalfighting be impediments to adminship? This is not evidence that the candidate will do harm with the tools, or that by approving the candidate, we will be harming Wikipedia.
I'm not sure that this is actually a philosophy that's good for the project anymore. We have a number of them that are probably antiquated and should be tossed by the wayside, but won't be.
I don't see how this philosophy is bad. People shouldn't be forced to run a Kafkaesque gauntlet to be able to help out with the occasional problem. I have not seen any problems caused by inactive or relatively quiet admins ( e.g. myself) to justify the claim that the risks of appointing more admins outweighs the costs. Adminship is a big deal in the sense that we must be able to trust the person with the tools - but in that case, it's always been a big deal. And adminship is no big deal in the sense that if you're qualified and trusted to hold the tools, you shouldn't need to meet some silly requirements like an arbitrary number of edits to get the mop and bucket.
Johnleemk